Before postseason play, one final ACC regular-season game for Terps football

Browse images of the Terps football team during the 2013 season.

Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun

COLLEGE PARK — In their few free moments, Maryland players might be tempted to glance at the Atlantic Coast Conference's bowl-game scenarios, trying to narrow down where they might find themselves playing in the postseason.

"Some people have [done it], just seeing where you could go," linebacker Matt Robinson (Atholton) said Tuesday. "That's always exciting."

But since bowl invitations are out of his control, the redshirt junior would prefer to focus on trying to win at North Carolina State on Saturday, and leave postseason predictions to the pundits.

"Winning will take care of that," Robinson said. "Anything that happens in the later weeks, that'll all be taken care of as long as we win."

There are more bowl-eligible teams from the ACC (10) than bowl games with tie-ins to the conference (eight). That means that Maryland (6-5, 2-5 ACC), if it loses to the Wolfpack (3-8, 0-7), could end up playing as an at-large entry in a bowl game that is not tied to the ACC.

There is no guarantee that the Terps make the postseason, although it would be unlikely for a bowl-eligible team from a major conference to be bypassed.

Maryland became bowl-eligible after its sixth win, an overtime upset of Virginia Tech on Nov. 16.

"If we go out there and get No. 7, that will definitely help our chances," quarterback C.J. Brown said Tuesday. "That's all we can focus on right now. We need to go out there and make a stand and just build on our portfolio as a team."

Maryland coach Randy Edsall told his players after the Virginia Tech game that they needed to keep accumulating wins to be assured of a game after Saturday.

"The kids know it. You don't have to remind them of those things," Edsall said Tuesday.

Saturday's contest is the last in the ACC for Maryland, which is leaving to join the Big Ten Conference next year.

"I wrote it down, that it's the last game in the ACC for them," N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said. "I don't know how big of a deal that will be to their team. But I do know about the series and how far it goes back."

The teams have met 69 times in a series dating to 1909. N.C. State athletic director Debbie Yow formerly held the same position at Maryland.